Lackawanna
County News

In The Providence Register

The articles that
are linked from this page were
transcribed by Anne
Tullar, 2001-2.
Anne provided the following information about the microfilm and the
publisher.
The paper had a circulation of less than 1,000.
I want to acknowledge the spirit and
energy of John U.
Hopewell, publisher for most of the paper's existence (1881-1914).

Judging from editorial comments,
he seems to have been
a man of clear opinions and strong beliefs. He was for
progress and
believed in it strongly. He promoted the addition of a clock
to the
bell tower of the local public school, civic cleanliness and order,
responsibility
among public officials and all citizens. He reprimanded
parents for
not knowing where their children were and what they were doing when it
seemed the children were endangering themselves or harming others in
ways
small and large. He particularly targeted boys, denouncing hooliganism
of all kinds, including the theft of ripe fruit from back yard trees.

He thought horses should have a
trough in the Square as
a matter of humane treatment of the animals; he was indignant that
stray
dogs constituted a danger to citizens; he was indignant as well when
citizens
did not keep their cows penned.

As the owner of a printing
company that did business with
the coal mines, and, it seems, as a social peer of mine owners, he must
have walked a fine line between caring for the plight of the miners and
not alienating customers. Certainly, he spared no details in
cases
of grisly accidents in the mines, yet he was unapologetic about his
anti-union
sentiments.

He was booster on the side of
city growth and improvement
as well as individual improvement. He understood the
connection between
cleanliness and health, and in those days of medical helplessness in
the
face of communicable disease epidemics, he campaigned tirelessly for
the
prompt disposal of trash and the cleanliness of streets, the latter a
tall
order on unpaved streetswith heavy horse traffic.

What's most appealing about him,
to me, in spite of his
occasional starchiness, is his optimism. He seems an
embodiment of
a Victorian and an American "can-do" ethic and did not shrink from
tirelessly
campaigning for the common good in the North End he seemed to care
about
so much.

All the issues are on microfilm and available from the State
Library
of Pennsylvania. I made copies only of the pages containing
some
reference to a family name. So anyone wanting to read more
has only
to go to the library or order the film via interlibrary loan.

Anne Tullar,
whose Flynn, Grady,
and McMullan ancestors were many in the Providence of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries.

Extracts from The
Providence Register

NOTE: all dates of this weekly
are not included because
they were not all filmed.